What have you done?
by lejf
Summary: Satirical TM/HP tropes. One take on why the Dursleys abuse Harry. Genre labelled as it is so it can get to the people I want it to.
This is satire. The Dursleys are trapped living the lives ' _they'_ created over and over.

If it is confusing, PM me and I will explain it.

* * *

 _Months ago._

"Leave the door locked!" Steam rose from the pots and pans as Petunia Dursley jostled about in the kitchen. "Don't let that damned _Harry_ _boy_ back in! Oh–" Dudley Dursley had waddled up beside her and thumped her knobby elbow. "Oh, Dudders, what's wrong? You want to go out to eat? Owh, Dudders, you see, we _can't._ Don't worry, I _promise_ these potatoes will taste _just_ as wonderful."

"Hell!" Her husband stomped in, throwing his coat over a chair. "Are you talking to that boy again?" He sneered as he wandered into the living room. The television blared. "Petunia, we left the door locked yesterday."

"Pre _cisely,_ " Petunia poured a large dollop of oil into the pan. "He'll get a horrible, horrible cold. All those snotty noses and such. Isn't that just what we want?"

"If he's inside I can beat him." Vernon sunk back into the living room sofas, almost disappearing in the folds of his fat. "Beat, rape, and torture. All the usual business."

He _knew_ his wife was pursing her lips. She hated talking about these things. Especially in front of Dudley! What if the boy understood? "I _still_ think we ought to do it the health way."

"No, Petunia." Vernon's head lolled back as he worked the kinks out of his neck. "You know that won't work. Starving and illnesses aren't enough. Mass murderers these days only stop for _pity_ when there's a bigger threat to their prey."

"We don't _know_ that. That's just what–"

"We saw it." His voice cut her off. "They showed us what happened."

She fell silent. There was only the sound of the fire and the pans. Suddenly, a pounding on the door.

"You did lock it, then."

Vernon grunted. "Wanted to look over Dudley's pictures today."

"Oh! He sent new ones?" The fire was off in a instant and Petunia rushed into the living room, where her husband was opening an envelope. Dudley Dursley wailed.

"When is dinner?" His mouth was open in a huge wobbly cry.

"Soon, soon," Petunia replied absentmindedly, craning her neck over her husband's shoulder. Photographs spilled from the snow-white envelope. Photos of a boy with tousled brown hair and equally dark eyes. The boy certainly bore resemblance to the one in the kitchen – but there was, of course, one vast difference. This boy wasn't overweight, didn't have piggy eyes, didn't have a brain too small for his face. He was, genuinely, _somehow,_ _pretty._ The right set to his cheekbones, his eyebrows. There was a living room around him, dark patterned walls and wispy curtains, and he was sitting straight in a chair, a small smile on his lips.

Vernon glanced up towards his wife. He didn't say anything, but the pointed look was enough.

"Oh, oh, I know," Petunia sniffed, nearly teary-eyed. "I just can't quite help it." Crying, that was.

The boy had a distinctly set jaw and pale flawless skin. He had the posture, too. The posture of a well-off boy living in a stern home. He didn't seem like the Dudley in the kitchen at all, who had started throwing spoons around. "Moooooom!" The miniature whale yelled.

"Oh, dearie, dearie!" Then Vernon's wife disappeared to clean up the mess that'd been made.

The man looked at the photos again, at the carefully looped handwriting at the bottom of the last one, where the boy was pouring over a cauldron.

 _Next month: Cafe that stocks horrendously yellow tarts. You know the one._

 _I'll bring the boy this time. You don't have long left._

 _\- Your Occlumens._

Then the photographs shrivelled up into the fire and were blown away as ash.

–––

 _Years and years ago._

" _Vernon_!"

The room was dark and stuffy with sweat and blood, the smell of agony.

"Oh, for–"

" _Don't_ start with me." Vernon growled, whirling around to face his wife who had appeared in the doorway. "We're too far in for anything else now."

"Look– just _look at him!_ " The boy was an unconscious lump on the bed. Harry Potter, with blood matted in his hair and his torn shirt. "This is more than you've ever done! Have you gone insane?"

Vernon's nostrils flared.

"You don't need to do anymore! He hates us enough!"

Beady eyes were fixed on the crumpled wizard. "Why do I go to _work_ every day?" Vernon suddenly gritted. "Why do I _bother_ to fucking sit down and eat dinner? Why do I turn on the television and watch nothing? Why do I _hit_ and _hurt?"_ His hands were wrung like claws. Then he bellowed, "BECAUSE I AM GOING TO DIE!"

Silence.

"Because my _son_ was going to _die_ , because _they_ showed us the _truth_ and made us live it through a thousand times, because _this_ is the only way a _mass murderer_ can be stopped, because my _wife_ was chained by some _blood–relation–_ "

"That's enough," Petunia said, expression nothing but a mask. All the air had been stolen from the room. "That's enough." She seemed to hollow. Soul, bled away.

Then she closed the door and left him in his agony.

–––

 _Years and years_

 _and years_

 _ago._

 _They_ had come.

 _They_ plucked up the Dursleys like marbles and slotted them neatly into puppets.

One life. Rolled into

Another. Slipped and melted into

another.

One future. Twisted into

Another. Warped and splintered into

another.

"There is no future," _they_ said, "where your family lives."

Vernon smiled back with a mouth full of teeth and blood.

Then Harry Potter arrived on their doorstep and they sent their son far, far, away.

–––

 _Now._

Petunia had lived this day a thousand times. Died it many, many, more. Kneeling on the tiled floor, Hadrian Darkness Raven Way Black standing before her, wrapped in tight-fitting clothes. Mass-murderer Voldemort stood behind Hadrian, because the two had fallen in love over the sheer _misery_ Hadrian had undergone at the Dursley's hands. Just like Petunia and Vernon knew they would.

Her body was locked with magic. Which meant she didn't have to spare the energy to act. Dying made you impatient and tired, just waiting for it to happen again, and she didn't know if she could put on a convincing show. Here, at the end of line.

"I would use magic to kill you." The boy's voice was cold as he chambered a round. The gun was sleek and dark, one for the people who knew how to kill.

She just watched his fingers slide over the black metal. Vernon's body was behind her, torn and shredded from the inside out with sorcery.

"But I want to watch you _bleed_ on your home turf." The barrel pressed under her chin. It tipped her head up to meet his eyes.

There were many truths he didn't know. Her son was _alive._ Living _right under his very nose._ God, what a joke they'd played! Of course, the price was their lives, but it was such a small, small, price to pay.

So she met his eyes and said nothing. Could he see the laughter hidden in her?

He didn't pull the trigger.

He hurled the gun away instead and his hand shot out instead to strangle her. Claw fingers, sunk into her skin, "This is for what you did to me–" His face was so ugly when it contorted into a snarl like that.

No, it was for what _he_ did to _them._ For the futures he created that all led to the same end.

Not this time. This time her son lived.

Then her trachea crumpled in his grip, cartilage snapping and folding, and she breathed no more.

– _––_

 _Forevermore._

"Leave the door locked!" Steam rose from the pots and pans as Petunia Dursley jostled about in the kitchen. "Don't let that damned _boy_ back in! Oh–" Dudley Dursley had waddled up beside her and thumped her knobby elbow. "Oh, Dudders, what's wrong? You want to go out to eat? Owh, Dudders, you see, we _can't._ Don't worry, I _promise_ these potatoes will taste _just_ as wonderful."

"Bloody hell!" Her husband stomped in, throwing his coat over a chair. "Are you talking to that boy again–

 _And again._

* * *

 _A/N: Who are 'they'?_

 _They're you_.

 _Don't you see?_


End file.
